Bought my first baby item, Quinny Buzz 4 2009 model

Back in September, I got a little surprise in life. My wife is pregnant. 4 months on, the baby is developing and each day my wife's tummy is growing. As for me, I've been studying what I need to buy for the baby. 1 of the essential item is pushchair. After much research, we decided to buy Quinny Buzz 4 black. I just ordered from Mothercare for £400. I then called them for a price match with Halfords for £329.99.

This is 2009 model and the pushchair can be used up to 4 years old. On top of that, it can mount a Maxi Cosi car seat which I'll purchase in the coming days.

A short promo clips from Quinny web site.

Something to look forward next year...

Yesterday I got a shock of life, and gave me something to look forward next year. More to come.

20 pence that worth £100

My colleague are luck to hold one of these rare coin that worth more than £100 in eBay. What make it valuable is It doesn't has the year printed on both side.

-- Post From My iPhone

First day with O2 Broadband

I'd signed up O2 Broadband on 28th March for their 12 month contract, first month free promotion. I got my broadband today after Tiscali terminated my account on 5/4. The speed look promising as compare to Tiscali, not to mean the price too, half of what i'm paying to Tiscali after O2 discount for mobile user.

BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend in Swindon

The coming months will be busy for me, with travel plan starting from April:Prague, SingaporeDay at Hampton Court; May: Snowdonia, Hertfordshire; June: Paris. Yet BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend announced today that will take place in Swindon, on 9th-10th May at Lydiard Park, a week after my Snowdonia trip. Registration for ticket will start on 14th April. I have to be lucky enough to get a ticket out of the limited 40,000.

Singapore Day 09 at London

Singapore Day 09 will be held at Hampton Court, London this year on 25th April 09. I got my eticket today. Hurray.

O2 GPRS Speed Test

My O2 monthly plan come with free 1GB GPRS data. So I was testing my company internet speed using ZDNet SpeedTest, I thought I can run the same test using my mobile. The result shown 49kbps.

Nikon D90 and D200

I got my Nikon D90 kit yesterday but I only have time to open the box today while I'm working at home waiting to sign a parcel for Cherlyn.

Comparing to the big brother Nikon D200+SB800+17-55mm f2.8, Nikon D90 is smaller and lighter and match well with a Speedlight SB400, a perfect combination to bring for travel along with Nikkor 18-200mm VR.

Guy Fawkes Night a.k.a. Bonfire Night

Today is Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Bonfire Night is an annual celebration on the evening of the 5th of Novemeber. It celebrates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot of the 5th November 1605 in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, attempted to blow up the House of Parliament in London.

Freezing temperature after daylight saving

Daylight saving adjustment was on 26th Oct, and day after that the temperature dropped to freezing level. Yesterday morning it was 0.5 degree and light snow in the evening...

Reminder for Register of Electors 2009

I received a post from Swindon Borough Council about 1 month ago to submit the name of the elector from my home address. At that point, I didn't pay attention to read the form as election is something related to the citizen. 2 days ago I received a reminder as I didn't response to the Council. And by law, I need response asap before 15 October 2008.

As Malaysian in UK, I'm ebiligle to Vote according to here. I can choose to



I also got some details from About my vote web site.

Got my Nikons gears

I got my AF105mm f2.8 D lens and speedlight sb400 from my sis on Sunday. There are both 2nd hand gears but very well maintain, I got both in Malaysia.

As I was not present, my sister deal on my behalf. when I tried to take some sample shots with it, I got this weird fEE error displayed on my camera. Everything was setting properly, but I just can't take a shot. Apparently I need to get the aperture to the smallest at f32, and lock it.

Upgraded my Asus Nova P20 RAM

Updated on 25/1/2012 - Finally after 3.5 years, I'd upgraded the CPU to C2D E6420 and it is running fine, paid £28 from ebay.

Asus Nova P20 has no upgrade option as the reseller in Singapore told me. In UK, there is no P20 model but PX24, P244 Black and P22. The initial look inside the box was very complicated but not impossible. It took me 5 hours to reach the RAM, but probably 1 hour if I would to redo again. Most of the UK models comes with 2GB ram, the maximum for the board, but if you do like to upgrade the processor or HDD, it is possible.

My unit comes with 120GB SATA hdd and a low end Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 processor. I was thinking of putting a new 320GB SATA2 HDD and any of the higher processor such as E6550 as I already gone thru the hassle of opening the box. In the end, I only replaced the RAM with a new 2GB Kingston DDR2 PC5300 667Mhz ram into it. Processor and HDD will be my next upgrade, perhaps early next year when the price comes down 20%.

It is now performed way better than before, for my WMP, Teamviewer and some graphic tools. This made it a better HTPC.

First look inside the box

HDD and holder bracket, without dvd drive

motherboard without the hdd & dvd drive bracket

Intel E2160 Desktop processor

the other side of the motherboard, and most importantly, the 1GB RAM

Asus Nova P20 Components & Tools I used

Fire drill came at bad timing

It was raining outside when the fire alarm started to rang. What a bad day for fire drill.

Hot Summer in Rome

We went to Rome on 22-25 August, and the weather was fantastic for summer lover. It was 28-32 degree with clear blue sky for most of the time. On the first day, we reached Rome city around quarter to 7pm. After taking our dinner, we walked to Trevi Fountain and spent our evening there.

A mini car on our way to Trevi

Crowded Trevi Fountain

On the second day, we went to Colosseum and the queue was long. However, it worth the wait. The historical site looks amazing in each way, it was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles.

Inside colosseum

Outside Colosseum

Watching Olympic 2008 in Office

Thanks to BBC, I'm able to watch Olympic live in my office although I scheduled to record it at home.

Math: Back to School

I was trying to solve a problem for several days for a bug, that involved getting a new point when a move related function. Problem start when I tried to move the Valve together with the connected features.


Ideally, I want to keep the ratio and the distance of the text from the line, and calculate new orientation based on the slope of the line, but the existing function didn't that.

I didn't know it is so complex to begin with. After a few attempts, I decided to consult my indian programmer. I'm impressed that they still remember the formula I learned in school. My problem involved digging my head for several old school lesson for math: distance (sqr((x2-x1)^2+(y2-y1)^2)), slope(m=(y1-y2)/(x1-x2), point(y=mx+c),trigonometry(sin,cos,tan), quadratic formula (ax2+bx+c=0) and linear formula (m1*m2=-1 for pependicular).

This equation below is just a subset of the works.

12 hours of funs

On Saturday, we went out from 12 and back at 12 midnight. We were hanging out with our Swindon mates. From dim sum lunch to chinese takeaway dinner then our usual past time games, Mahjong, UNO and Pictionary.

Takeaway from Da Shanghai

The usual gang

UNO game

UNO game result

Pictionary, it was male vs female after decided by card draw

Our Pictionary drawing

My Home Networking Setup Part 2

After several weeks of hit and misses, finally I come to enable home PC remote desktop in office. :) There is no way I can remote access from my office using RDP, VPN, OPENVPN or OPENSSH as my company firewall is too strict. Initially I was trying Timbuktu but it doesn't support Vista at the moment, and web based LogMeIn has been blocked by the company proxy. Luckily I found a free collaboration software called TeamViewer while surfing in Skype forum.

For this, all I need to do is install it and get the ID and Password on the host PC I want to access and once I entered the details, then TeamViewer will establish a secure connection to the host. Simple and easy. It eliminates the effort to setup RDP, VPN, OPENVPN, OPENSSH or DDNS.

ID & Password is auto generate. But I found the ID is static even after reboot

VPN to access share folder

File Sharing

The only problem with this is getting the password if you intend to leave your home for long. But my workaround is to setup a screen grab at an interval using SnagIt then save it as picture and put it in a ftp server. All I need to do is access my ftp server and check the picture for password.

SnagIt with capture timer setting

I just found out a static password is possible from the options dialog. Now it is getting simplier.

I can confirm the ID remain static, but to make sure the Connection ID doesn't change will not at home, the best way is to grab the ID in TeamViewer log file at C:\Documents and Settings\[YOURNAME]\Application Data\TeamViewer\TeamViewer3_Logfile.log

05/08 08:55:25.515 5660 D CCT.Connect.master.dyngate.com:80
05/08 08:55:25.562 5660 D S3 master.dyngate.com - CT0 NC.CHttp.Conned
05/08 08:55:25.562 5660 D S3 master.dyngate.com - CCT.Connected
05/08 08:55:25.562 5660 D ! S3 master.dyngate.com - CT6 CT.Send.CMD_MASTERCOMMAND From=[YOURID]To=0 L=261
05/08 08:55:25.625 5660 D ! S3 master.dyngate.com - CT6 CT.Receive.CMD_MASTERRESPONSE From=0 To=[YOURID] L=4
05/08 08:55:25.625 5660 D S3 master.dyngate.com - CT6 CT.Term

And the best place to put the log file is in the ftp server where it is easily accessible.

My Home Networking Setup

I'm not going in details but for the last couple of weeks, I have been busy trying to setup a Remote Desktop Connection between my company and my home. That lead me to setup DDNS, OpenVPN and OpenSSH. Although I'd successfully setup the above, the downside is my company firewall has prevent me from establishing a connection back home. My administrator told me the only way I can get around is to VPN from home to company and use the established tunnel to route home.


At the sametime, I setup FTP server for me to retrieve my photos and etc. Gosh, I was surprised to see someone tried to hack in using admin user. I also setup glype web proxy to browse site that might be blocked by my company proxy, mostly all social networking site, online storage, bittorent and web proxy. Yesterday I'd setup web UI for uttorent and emule to monitor my download progress since I could not remote desktop back to my home.





Next, I'll try to setup my own blog or photoblog and hopefully I can get it done within days.